"I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages."
-William H. Mauldin

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Bittersweetness

My apologies for not writing, sooner. I’ve been keeping my thoughts to myself, lately, for several reasons that I’m going to continue to keep to myself. Some of you are saying, “Thank you,” I’m sure. I’ve also noticed a drop in postings from my regular haunts; I suspect that something’s in the air – or the water.

I had a quite bittersweet time, this last Tuesday afternoon. Roger Ebert is one of my heroes. If you watch movies, he is an inescapable force. If you appreciate great writing, his reviews and now, his blogging and online offerings are necessary. He continues to live an amazing life, and his writings reflect a mind cultivated by a wide world of experiences, transformed by extraordinary events. It’s difficult for me to write in the same ether.

Roger appeared on Oprah last week(I am going to assume that my European friends know who she is – if not, google away). If you don’t know, he has lost his jaw, along with his ability to eat and speak. Among other things, this appearance debuted a synthesized version of Roger’s voice, which no one had heard for quite some time. It was wonderful to see him, to see Chaz, and learn a little more about them both. I will confess I had tears in my eyes at the end.

That’s the sweet part. I had tears in my eyes before it started.

I get home about 10 minutes before Oprah comes on. I turned on the TV in the bedroom and began changing out of my uniform, ending that part of my day, getting ready to watch the show. It was then that the news came on that Chelsea King’s body had been found in a shallow grave. It was another instance of a community taking another punch in the gut, tenuous hopes giving way to grief. Grief and anger at the being (thankfully, in custody ONCE MORE) capable of such inhumanity. I did not know her, but our city was looking for her; she’d been a main focus of attention since her disappearance the Thursday before. Moments such as these should break every heart.

I’m presenting this to you, backward, because it’s really how I experienced it. I had been anticipating the “sweet” for days, the “bitter” was a 10-minute step into knee-deep sorrow, followed by the good feelings I’d been waiting for. Twenty minutes after that, I turned the TV off and sat on my bed in a moment of stunned silence at the breadth of human experience that I’d just witnessed. I didn’t dwell on it for long, there were things to do, and many of these thoughts are best dealt with alongside the grit and grime of the things we need to do. I’ll leave that thought there.

Again, and as I put it here, I feel such a sense of mystery about what this is all about. Mystery that I should feel that need, that human need, to make it make sense. Can I accept that is not possible for “this” to reconcile?